In U.S.A. alone, 500 million straws are used every single day. Single-use straws have a very short lifespan before being discarded to landfill. Being made of plastic, these straws may take hundreds of years to break down. Further, disposable plastic drinking straws often contain levels of Bisphenol A (BPA) which complicates the recycling process. Accordingly, these aspects combine to create a huge environmental problem when it comes to disposing of these drinking straws.
To counteract this problem, some drinking straws have been developed using paper, bamboo, or similar biodegradable materials. Better still, reusable drinking straws have also been developed, negating any need for recycling. However, acceptance of reusable drinking straws by the public has been hindered by the lack of an effective means for thoroughly cleaning the reusable drinking straw both inside and out.
Currently, reusable drinking straws are placed alongside cutlery in various cleaning appliances (e.g., domestic and industrial cleaning dishwashers). These machines rarely orientate reusable drinking straws so that the inside of these straws are effectively cleaned. Rather, the reusable drinking straws and cutlery are placed into utensil holders or other containers, where the angular orientations of the straws are not consistently maintained in a manner that allows the flow of water and/or cleaning fluid to effectively wash and remove contaminants from the outer and inner surface of the straw. The inner surface of the straw surrounds the cylindrical conduit of the straw, referred to as a “lumen” of a straw.
What is needed therefore is an apparatus and method for allowing reusable drinking straws to be cleaned efficiently and easily, both inside and out. Such an apparatus and methods would promote customer confidence in reusable drinking straw cleanliness, which would promote popular acceptance of reusable drinking straws and dramatically reduce the volume of discarded disposable plastic straws.